CO Officers Fired Over Photo Re-Enacting "Neckhold" Used During In-Custody Death

Three Aurora, CO, officers fired over a photo reenacting a neckhold like the one police used on Elijah McClain before the 23-year-old man died in 2019 will not get their jobs back, officials said Tuesday.

In decisions upholding the terminations of Aurora Officers Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich and Jason Rosenblatt, the Aurora Civil Service Commission noted that the photo, which became public about a month after the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, caused pain for McClain's family and hurt already-strained relations between police and the community, the Associated Press reports.

Protests and riots erupted in Aurora after the release of video from the 2019 McClain incident.

McClain’s death drew renewed attention last year amid the Black Lives Matter protests and riots, prompting investigations by the city, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI.

Police Chief Vanessa Wilson fired the three officers last year over two photos taken at a memorial to McClain two months after his death. Marrero, Dittrich and another officer who resigned, Jaron Jones, are shown smiling in one photo taken on Oct. 20, 2019, and in another, Jones has his arm around Dittrich’s neck in a fake neckhold like the one used on McClain.